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Category Archives: MAD Projects

Storage, storage, storage. Organization, organization, organization. It’s the story of my life! We moved into an old house with little storage room to hide all of our “junk”. We don’t have a mudroom and needed a central place for the kids to easily access their coats, shoes, hats, scarfs, umbrellas and backpacks for school. Our entryway was a blank canvas so I turned it into the “Kids Corner”.

I first started out with a white hook board from Home Depot (<$30) and put it up at a level where my youngest could reach it, am always trying to find ways to make them more independent. After I got the function I wanted out of it I needed the form to follow. It wasn’t quite exactly welcoming yet.

To make the space into a more defined area I ordered a customized burlap printed family tree from Jane for $9 with our names and our anniversary date on it and used a dark frame from Michaels ($12) with a crisp white matte. I thought my husband would think it was cheesy but when he saw it he gave me a hug. That’s when you know you got ’em!

We are always in a rush in the mornings so I put a $4 clock from Target up so we’d know how much time we had left before sprinting to the bus stop. I also added the $3 white baskets from Target for the kids to throw their shoes in. I didn’t even attempt to do anything other than to make it easily accessible for them to find their sneakers in the morning. Time is a wastin’!

Then I ordered the wooden sign, “All you need is love“, from an Etsy shop ($26). Our wedding song was a John Lennon song and we (I) are a huge Beatles fan. It’s not just words up on the wall. To make it even more personalized I got a $12 picture shelf from Target and put up a painting that we bought from our honeymoon in St. Lucia and pictures of our kids. The wooden “FAMILY” sign came from Michaels.

So this Kids Corner is not just about hooks and pictures and words, it has special meaning to our family as well. My kids love it because they know where to get and put their things, I love it because I get this unnatural sick sense of joy that my house is somewhat organized and my guests can use it too to hang their purses, coats, etc. when they come in our door. Hope you get some ideas from our Kids Corner for your home.

We wanted a large chalkboard for our dining room to anchor a wall and for us to write seasonal messages and menus when we have dinner parties. The problem was that every large chalkboard that we found was expensive, more than what we were willing to spend. So my husband and I bought a mirror from Walmart for $25 and painted it with $10 chalk paint from Home Depot. It looked a little bare after we put it on the wall so I bought burlap ribbon from Michael’s for $5, folded it into a ribbon and then hot glue gunned it onto the top of the frame.

For Christmas I added some berries to the ribbon to make it more festive and changed the message.